On June 4, 2018, the United States Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U.S. ___ (2018). This decision reversed a Colorado court of appeals’ ruling that a baker violated the state’s public accommodation law by refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple based on religious grounds. The Supreme Court’s narrowly crafted decision gives businesses little guidance on the interplay between public accommodation law and sincerely held religious views. Read More ›

Summer is here. Is your workplace prepared to handle the seasonal changes in dress codes? Whether you opt for guidelines or specific rules, Nemeth Law attorney Deborah Brouwer offers tips to help employers navigate often touchy dress code issues in the summer season. Read More ›

President Donald Trump’s focus on preventing illegal border crossings into the U.S. and deporting illegal immigrants has been widely publicized, but employers need to take note of other tactics the President’s administration is using to clamp down on illegal immigration. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) predicted that about 5,500 workplace investigations will be conducted this fiscal year, nearly tripling the number from the previous year. Similarly, ICE initiated 2,282 employer audits in the first eight months of this fiscal year (October – May), which substantially exceeds the 1,360 audits performed all of last year. ICE’s goal is to eventually open up to 15,000 audits per year. These statistics are a warning to employers to be prepared in case of an audit. Read More ›

Are your student internship programs keeping pace with changes in the law? New Department of Labor regulations released this year make unpaid internships legal – as long as students are the primary beneficiary of the internship. Nemeth Law Senior Attorney Nicholas Huguelet shares legal guidelines and offers tips to keep employers on the right side of the law when it comes to unpaid internships. Read More ›

The deadline for filing the EEO-1 report is March 31. This report monitors job patterns of women and minorities. If you are a private employer or federal contractor and meet key parameters, your report needs to be filed online at EEOC.gov. Nemeth Law Senior Attorney Nicholas Huguelet shares more details on the EEO-1 report in this quick video. Read More ›

While most of us are focused on Tax Day as the next major federal filing deadline, large employers and federal contractors should not lose sight of March 31 – the deadline for filing EEO-1 reports. For those who are unfamiliar, the EEO-1 report is a compliance survey mandated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under its regulations implementing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Through this report, the EEOC collects data on the race, ethnicity, and sex of private-sector employees, which is subdivided by job category. The EEOC will use this data to analyze job patterns of women and minorities in private industry in order to guide enforcement efforts. To this end, the information included in an employer’s EEO-1 report may be used in litigation against that employer. Read More ›

On July 26, 2017, the White House announced transgender individuals would no longer be allowed to serve in the military and provided guidance to the U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”) consistent with that announcement. On August 25, 2017, President Trump sent a memo to the DOD with further instructions that the DOD should stop allowing transgender individuals to enlist. The ACLU along with pro bono law firms have challenged these actions. On August 28, 2017, lawsuits were filed alleging violations of the United States Constitution by failing to provide the transgender community with equal protection of the laws and by treating them more harshly than other individuals. Read More ›

Michigan’s public sector bargaining law, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), MCL 423.201 etseq., has long recognized the right of a union to “prescribe its own rules with respect to the . . . retention of membership.” A right-to-work amendment to that law (2012 PA 349) provides that a public employee cannot be forced to “remain a member of a labor organization or bargaining representative or otherwise affiliate with or financially support a labor organization or bargaining representative.” In light of these provisions, can a union limit membership revocation to a one month window period each year? Is this a lawful union rule relating to the retention of union membership? Or, is it an unlawful attempt to force a public employee to remain a member and pay dues? Read More ›

The conventional wisdom by which many employers abide is to limit the cost of resolving employment disputes by requiring that employees arbitrate their employment disputes individually, rather than as a class. Generally, arbitration is more convenient, cheaper, faster, and less burdensome than traditional litigation. However, many of these benefits may be lost with class actions. Class actions bring procedural complications in addition to potential significant liability. To avoid this, many employers incorporate class action waivers into their employment arbitration agreements. Read More ›